


Never Needed a Tether Until Now

by hannelore



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Peril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24917032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannelore/pseuds/hannelore
Summary: While scouting for new planets to discover, Skyfire and Starscream find themselves in a precarious situation after a landing goes awry.
Relationships: Skyfire/Starscream (Transformers)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 29
Collections: Turing Fest 2020





	Never Needed a Tether Until Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laurus_nobilis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurus_nobilis/gifts).



> Many thanks to my wonderful and knowledgable beta, quietmoon! As a longtime Transformers fan, I was very happy to find this prompt. This fic takes place long before Episode 7 "Fire in the Sky."

It started as a game to pass the time. There were only so many planets and it was always Starscream who grumbled, "That one didn't seem worthy of even landing," until Skyfire would remind him that they were _explorers_ and their work as scientists was not to pick the most _ideal_ planet to explore, but any undiscovered planet.

The game went like this: every time they passed some smaller space rock, significant to be noteable but not room enough for them to land, one would call it out and claim it as theirs. After all, they couldn't keep track of every bit of space junk, and Skyfire would usually end up feigning dismay when Starscream found one before he did. It was because Starscream would love to zip farther ahead, wanting to be the _first_ while Skyfire would drift lazily through the cosmos and enjoy the view.

"I haven't seen anything in awhile," Starscream returned, cut his engines, transformed, and looked around the inky blackness speckled with dim starlight. "I'm bored."

"How can you be bored?" Skyfire transformed as well, stretching out his legs beneath him. Even while not in flight, they could hover in place. "Look around you, the stars are beautiful."

"You delight far too much in the small things," Starscream said with a snort and a small puff of his boosters, maneuvering himself to be eye-to-eye with the much larger Skyfire.

"I can't imagine why," Skyfire said in a demure tone. Starscream didn't have the ability to blush, but Skyfire bet that if he could have, he would have. "Anyway, what's your hurry? We've all the time we need, for this mission especially. There's no need for us to rush."

"I think I see something!" Starscream gasped as he transformed again and rocketed toward a glinting horizon. Skyfire sighed but transformed as well, following Starscream and leaving the peaceful moment behind.

"Now _this_ is a planet," Starscream said as they landed, the dust unmoving as their wheels touched the surface. "Are those volcanoes in the distance? Do you think they're dormant or not?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Skyfire said as he crept forward slowly. Just then, the crust of the surface suddenly gave way and cracked, and his front wheel stuck. Starscream quickly transformed, his face transfixed in horror. "What— but nothing happened when I landed."

"The extra weight, no doubt." Skyfire tried to move a little bit back, but then the surface cracked again and one of his rear wheels got stuck as well.

'Don't move!" Starscream screeched. There was fear in his vocaliser and truth be told, Skyfire was feeling more than a little nervous as well.

"I could try to take off again..."

"Then you might fall in completely," Starscream said quickly. "Just... just stay put. Maybe you're on an overhanging rock shelf or something. Let me see if there's a way to look underneath."

"And get you crushed beneath me?! We'd both be trapped."

"Just... don't move. Give me a moment." Starscream lifted off the planet's surface, which seemed stable underneath his pedes. "Please don't move, I won't go far. But tell me you won't move or... I won't leave you."

"I won't move," Skyfire promised. "Go on, I trust you'll get me out of here."

Skyfire was glad Starscream had been too consumed with his plan to realize that Skyfire had been quietly keeping his thrusters running, just enough to keep him from sinking back down. It was a strain, though, and once the sight of Starscream disappeared into one of the planet's craters, Skyfire gasped as he felt his nose wheel dip down a little further. Internal instruments struggled to keep things balanced, upright, but he felt his resolve slipping along with the wheel tread.

"I'm below you now!" Starscream's voice crackled inside his cockpit. "I was right, we landed on this cavern's overhang, not the surface itself. It's… it's very thin."

"How deep is the cavern?" Skyfire called back.

"It's… it's a drop," Starscream's reply was hesitant. "But not far enough for your thrusters to activate to lift off. But I have an idea. I... I think."

"Go on."

"If you don't get crushed _after_ you catch on fire?"

"If I place myself right under your front wheel, that's the one that's nearly though, I should be able to hold you long enough to provide for a lift-off."

"My engines will roast you," Skyfire said, alarmed. "You don't have enough shielding to withstand that type of blast."

"Most of your lift is in the back," Starscream's voice was determined and Skyfire's heart fell as he knew he wasn't going to be able to talk Starscream out of it. "But you _must_ take off full throttle, don't hold back. Once you're clear, I can fly out."

"If you don't get crushed _after_ you catch on fire?"

"There's no time to argue!" Starscream was right. Skyfire's other back wheel suddenly cracked through the surface.

Skyfire cleared his processor. Usually he was the one who had to calm the fiery-tempered Starscream. Now he was the one getting scared?

"All right," Skyfire said. "But stay under my nose wheel."

"Agreed," Starscream said. Skyfire swore he could hear static creeping through Starscream's vocaliser, but then again he was the only one who could see below the surface and knew what fate could befall Skyfire if this didn't work.

"Be careful and get out of there as soon as I'm free!" Skyfire demanded. "Countdown from three—"

His HUD showed him that his frame was even more askew. Starscream was under his front wheel now. Skyfire steadied himself. 

"...two... one!"

_Please don't die._

It was a difficult maneuver in itself, worse under pressure. He pointed himself straight upwards as all rockets fired off and amid the roaring din he heard Starscream cry out. It all happened so quickly, Skyfire was free of the breaking overhang and was now careening so fast up into the planet's atmosphere he could barely get himself turned around to look back down. The surface that he had been so precariously perched was falling away, an even thinner crust than he had imagined.

"Starscream. Starscream!"

A moment later, he let out a sob of relief as Starscream streaked out of the cavern, leaving a little trail of singed smoke behind him. He wasn't heading toward Skyfire, though, but away... Skyfire flew after him.

To his surprise, there was a pool of water just over the crater's crest and Starscream sank into it, transforming back. Smoke turned to steam, hissing overhead. The pool was shallow and Skyfire waded through it quickly to get to him, scooping Starscream up in his arms.

Exhausted and shaking, he sat down hard in the pool. Oddly enough, the coolness of the water was a balm to his own weary engines that had fought to keep him upright for the precarious moments.

"I'm all right," Starscream said, squinting his optics open and glancing down. "Still functional."

"That was quite a gamble," Skyfire said. "It could have all gone horribly wrong."

"Funny how it didn't, though."

Skyfire let out a hoarse, tired chuckle as he held Starscream a little closer.

"I owe you one."

"Your space object count is immediately negative one thousand," Starscream said sleepily. He must have used a lot of energy both in scouting out the problem and helping Skyfire out of there. "So I probably am now ahead for the next few… well, the rest of the mission."

"I'm fine with that." Skyfire leaned down, holding him closer. Starscream closed his optics while Skyfire looked up at the stars, at the infinity of space, and exhaled slowly. He knew, now more than ever, that any predicament they got into during their explorations they could get out of it. Together.


End file.
